Tahir Elçi (1966,

Cizre Cizre () is a city in the Cizre District of Şırnak Province in Turkey. It is located on the river Tigris by the Syria–Turkey border and close to the Iraq–Turkey border. Cizre is in the historical region of Upper Mesopotamia and the cultura ...

– 28 November 2015) was a

Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish language ** Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji) **Central Kurdish (Sorani) **Southern Kurdish ** Laki Kurdish *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern ...

lawyer and the chairman of

Diyarbakır Bar Association The Diyarbakır Bar Association is an organization of lawyers established in the year 1927. It is one of the 81 members of the Turkish Bars Association. Several of its leaders were prosecuted and one of its presidents was assassinated. The curre ...

Early life and education

He went to primary and secondary school in

and graduated from

Dicle University Dicle University (, ) is a public university located in Diyarbakır, Turkey, and one of the largest higher education institution. Vocational schools are located in Ergani, Çermik, Çüngüş, Bismil, and Silvan, Turkey, Silvan History Dicle Uni ...

in 1991. In 1993 he was a lawyer in

, and a member of the Cizre Bar Association and defending people against the Turkish state at the

European Commission of Human Rights The European Commission of Human Rights was a special body of the Council of Europe. From 1954 to the 1998 entry into force of European Convention on Human Rights#Protocol 11, Protocol 11 to the European Convention on Human Rights, individuals d ...

(ECHR). Between the 10 December 1993 and 17 February 1994 he was in detention accused of links with the

Kurdistan Workers' Party The Kurdistan Workers' Party, or the PKK, isDespite the PKK's 12th Congress announcing plans for total organisational dissolution, the PKK has not yet been dissolved de facto or de jure. a Kurds, Kurdish militant political organization and armed ...

's armed wing.

Professional career

Between 1996 and 2006 he was active at the Diyarbakir Bar association as a manager and in 2012 he was elected its chairman. On 23 March 2014, he was the lawyer in the Kuşkonar massacre case in the ECHR, in which Turkey was condemned for massacring Kurdish civilians and blaming the PKK. Elçi was detained several times and received death threats after saying the banned PKK should not be regarded as a terrorist organization. In October 2015, Elçi was detained by Turkish authorities and accused of disseminating "terrorist propaganda" after having said in an interview with

CNN Türk Cable News Network Türk (known as CNN Türk) is a Turkish free-to-air television news channel, launched on 11 October 1999 as the local affiliate of American channel CNN. It broadcasts exclusively for Turkey and it is owned by Demirören Grou ...

, that the PKK was not a terrorist organization.

Death

He was killed in the Sur district of Diyarbakir in southeastern Turkey on 28 November 2015. He was shot during a shootout between police and members of the

Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement The Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (, , YDG-H) was the urban, militant youth wing of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) from 2006-2015. Trained by more experienced PKK cadres for urban fighting, and consisting mostly of children and adu ...

(YDG-H), the PKK's youth wing, following a press statement during which he had been calling for an end to violence between the PKK and the Turkish state. Two members of the YDG-H shot and killed two police officers and fled down the Yenikapı street, where Tahir Elçi was holding the press conference beside the "Four-legged Minaret" of the

Sheikh Matar Mosque Sheikh Matar Mosque or Sheikh Mutahhar Mosque (, or ''Mizgefta Şêx Mutahar'') is a historical mosque in Diyarbakır, Turkey, best known for its unique minaret based on four columns, dubbed the Four-legged Minaret (, ). The mosque is situated ...

. As the YDG-H militants ran down the street and past the scene of the press conference, police officers opened fire on them. Elçi was shot in the back of the head during the shootout and the YDG-H militants escaped.Investigation of the audio-visual material included in the case file of the killing of Tahir Elçi

Forensic Architecture Forensic Architecture is a multidisciplinary research group based at Goldsmiths, University of London that uses architectural techniques and technologies to investigate cases of state violence and violations of human rights around the world. The ...

Reactions

The same day, the

International Association of Democratic Lawyers International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) is an international organization of left-wing and progressive jurists' associations with sections and members in 50 countries and territories. Along with facilitating contact and exchange of v ...

(IADL) and the European Association of Lawyers for Democracy and Human Rights (ELDA) condemned the assassination and called for an independent investigation. The Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) called the shooting a "planned assassination," and protests erupted in Turkey after Elçi's killing. Elçi's brother Ahmet Elçi was quoted as saying that his brother was "murdered by the state." Anti-government protests in Turkey with crowds shouting "You can't kill us all" followed the attack. The HDP leader

Selahattin Demirtaş Selahattin Demirtaş (born 10 April 1973) is a Kurdish politician, lawyer and author. He was the co-leader of the left-wing pro- Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), serving alongside Figen Yüksekdağ from 2014 to 2018. Selahattin Demirt ...

claimed in his interview on IMC TV that according to their investigators, the bullet which killed Tahir Elçi was fired by a Turkish police officer.

Investigation

Following the murder, Turkish authorities announced the "we aren't ruling out the possibility that a third party directly targeted him." In June 2016, Turkish authorities claimed that a captured militant witnessed PKK militants Uğur Yakışır and Mahsum Gürkhan open fire upon Tahir Elçi the moment he was killed. In 2019,

conducted an independent investigation on behalf of the Diyarbakır Bar Association and analyzed the killing. They studied all available videos of the shooting frame by frame, as well as testimonies. They concluded that the fleeing PKK did not shoot at Elçi, the likely fatal shot probably came from 2 identified police officers shooting on the two fleeing PKK and not from the escaping PKK militants. They also point out no medical check was carried on Elçi for 10 minutes after being shot, and none of the policemen involved were ever questioned or debriefed by Turkish authorities, despite the need to do so.

Personal life

Tahir Elci was married to Türkan Elçi and was the father of two daughters.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Elci, Tahir Kurdish murder victims Turkish murder victims Turkish Kurdish people 20th-century Turkish lawyers 1966 births 2015 deaths People from Cizre People murdered in Turkey Deaths by firearm in Turkey Kurdish–Turkish conflict (2015–present) Kurdish jurists 21st-century Turkish lawyers Filmed killings by law enforcement Filmed killings in Asia